On Monday, the Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis signed agreements with the governments of the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and El Salvador to protect their workers in this country. At the same time, she emphasized her department’s concern with the well being of foreign job thieves.

Not that such a move should be a surprise. Solis has been going the extra mile for lawbreaking foreign workers for as long as she has been the Labor Secretary. (See Department of Labor against American Workers from 2010.)

Border: An administration that conducts raids looking for illegal wood rather than illegal aliens signs partnerships with foreign governments to advise these aliens of their rights. What part of “illegal” don’t they get?

Right on the heels of enacting the federal Dream Act through administrative fiat, the administration of President Obama, specifically Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, on Monday signed “partnership” agreements with ambassadors from a group of Latin American nations aiming to protect what she described as the labor rights of both legal and illegal migrants working in the U.S.

This ceremony marked the signing of partnership agreements with the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, and El Salvador, joining Mexico, Nicaragua and Guatemala, which had signed the agreement previously.

So while the administration works closely with foreign countries to promote illegal immigration, it takes border states like Arizona to court when they try to protect their borders and enforce our immigration laws.

Partners in crime would be more like it. According to the Immigration and Nationality Act, “employers may hire only persons who may legally work in the United States (i.e., citizens and nationals of the U.S.) and aliens authorized to work in the U.S.”

The Labor Department itself on its website says the INA only protects “U.S. citizens and aliens authorized to accept employment in the U.S. from discrimination in hiring or discharge.”

Yet Solis seems to have amended the law on her own, saying at the signing ceremony, “No matter how you got here or how long you plan to stay, you have certain rights.”

Solis wants to educate all migrant workers, including those who’ve snuck past the U.S. Border Patrol, of these rights, such as “the right to a legal wage” and the right not to be abused in the workplace.

We don’t know what constitutes a legal wage for someone who is illegally employed. The best protection against the abuse of illegal workers is for them not to be here and, rather than giving illegal workers more reasons to come, to go after their potential abusers: those companies that illegally hire them.

Of more concern to the Obama administration apparently is the possibility that American guitar manufacturers might be importing illegal wood from protected trees.

On Aug. 24, the Justice Department conducted four raids on Gibson Guitar Corp. facilities in Nashville. Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz, a Republican donor, surmises that the feds were looking for rosewood illegally imported from places like Madagascar, for he was not immediately told the purpose of the raid.

The administration had already implemented a backdoor amnesty program when Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano recently sent letters to Congress saying she had the authority on a case-by-case basis to ignore the nation’s immigration laws and halt the deportation of illegal aliens not perceived to be a criminal threat as long as they meet certain criteria set by the administration.

Starting in 2009, the Labor Department has worked in conjunction with 50 Mexican consulates across the nation to bring U.S. labor law education to migrant workers. This wasn’t an American initiative, by the way. It came at the request of the Mexican consulate in Los Angeles — that is, Mexico’s government.

Nothing wrong with that, as long as these workers are here legally. But now, says Solis, it no longer matters how they got here — or whether they belong here. They have rights, even if the right to stay is not among them.

We have an administration that can’t create jobs for its citizens but worries about the rights of its illegal competitors for what jobs exist.

It works more closely with foreign consulates than it does with American border sheriffs.

And instead of focusing on enforcing existing immigration laws and securing our national borders, it’s currying favor with labor unions and Hispanics in the run-up to the 2012 election.

Miscellaneous

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